Posted on 05/04/2020 3:08:28 AM PDT by zeestephen
In April, the BBC posted a video of journalist and “Top Gear” host Chris Harris behind the wheel of the aforementioned multimillion-dollar car — specifically, a McLaren Speedtail that comes with a starting price of about $2 million and boasts a 1,036-horsepower engine and a top speed of 250 miles per hour...The actual match up starts at about 3:45.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
In before the “Tesla would have beaten the jet” crowd arrives!
I wouldn’t call that a “drag race” as the car & jet were competing on closed track (jet was flying above it, of course).
I remember an issue of “Popular Mechanics” in the mid-80s where Chuck Yeager in a supercharged Corvette raced an F-20 Tigershark... and won. I think there’s a fundamental public misunderstanding about how jets develop their speed. Yeager knew this and predicted the car would win.
This was interesting as the Jet had to pull some serious G’s to stay within a tight course.
Maybe the F-35 could Take Off and pop up to 20K altitude and then dive “Bomb” the Car and repeat at all 3 corners. The Pilot would probably need to put in a Loop to be able to climb back to 20K.
I'll bet that the McLaren couldn't keep up with the F-35!
Yep, went to an air show once that featured the same demo. It kind of ruined all future airshows for me. Now I'm only about speed, power, and that bone-rattling sound.
Kind of jealous of air show enthusiasts of the future; they're probably going to get to see the Starship Enterprise go to warp 9 right in front of their faces.
Endless money pit as Scottie would say...
Make for a nice lease though or sell it the second the warranty runs out.
Suddenly, the whole woods shook, snow fell out of the trees to cover me. The boom was deafening. I looked up just in time to see, just above tree level, a B-58 streaking away.
I found out later that woods/swamp was similar to a place in the Soviet Union, so the B-58's used it to practice low lever supersonic bomb runs.
Yes, but it probably is a pretty good ‘chick magnet’..
My similar story involves an overnight outing at Glamis, CA in the desert. We’d off-roaded, partied into the evening, and now were peacefully sleeping just after dawn the next day (a Saturday, as I recall).
My slumber was rudely interrupted as two Air National Guard F-100 Super Sabres roared overhead at about 100 feet altitude. After getting up off the ground (I’d fallen out of my cot), I jumped up to see them streaking away across the desert, no doubt laughing at all the cussing going on back at the dunes...
Good times!
Wow, that was great....
Yea it is amazing what a sweet car can do to ones social status.
There are faster cars out there now from Bugatti and Koenigsegg and some others but they cannot sustain such high speeds for very long due to tire limitations etc.
A jet engine is not a rocket engine. The rocket engine consumes fuel components delivered in a proper proportion to instantly supply energy through rapid combustion. That energy is very efficiently converted to exhaust momentum, the reaction of which is a counter-thrust exerted upon the engine.
The jet engine of an aircraft, initially at a standing start, uses about two-thirds of the energy released within by fuel combustion, to perform compression work on gathered atmosphere. The fuel injection is constrained by the amount of compressed combustion air supplied by the inlet turbine, in order to avoid loss of a stable burn of the fuel, with the flame departing out the engines exhaust nozzle. This is the static thrust limitation, with the consequence that a ramp over a modest period of time (seconds) exists for a jet engine to build additional power, once moving.
The increase in velocity of a jet aircraft through the atmosphere assists airflow into the engine intake. As runway speed increases, the ram-air effect begins to supplement the turbine’s air compressor efforts, which allows an increased percentage of the combusted fuel’s energy to become transformed to exhaust momentum. Increased fuel burn accompanies the rapidly increasing airflow within the engine.
In some cases, the ram air will become excessive and is bypassed around the engine core. This was used to great effect with the SR-71, in which at cruise the turbojet core supplied ten percent of thrust, and the bypass air to the high flow afterburner/ramjet, allowed generation of the remaining ninety percent of power required under those flight conditions.
B-58s were a common sight and sound when I was a kid in southern MI. They were based at Bunker Hill AFB (later Grissom) north of Kokomo, IN.
I spent time in both the MI ANG and the MI Army NG. It was funny when I was ANG, not so much when I was Army.
I’d seen them before over Grand Rapids, but at height.
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